I'm a vegetarian, and I was also happily home-educated, so this really hit a nerve for me. I understand that social services need to be aware, but if the family have done nothing wrong then it just seems harrassing.

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Only after he was rushed to the Evelina childrenís hospital in Waterloo, central London, was it discovered that he appeared to be suffering from rickets, with very low levels of vitamin D, zinc and iron. He also had a bronchial condition.

Hospital doctors alerted Lewisham council because they believed the childís condition was caused by malnutrition.

A group of doctors suspect that the child is sick because of malnutrition and social services should just ignore that because the parents swear that he isn't? If it is at the point where the child is collapsing, then obviously there is a serious problem. The fact that the parents and other children are healthy is irrelevant. Toddlers have very different vitamin and nutritional needs than adults.

Of course social services had to look into the report. If they hadn't and the child was malnourished and died because of it, people would be hounding them for being careless. In fact, there would probably be a topic here and you would all be saying how awful social services is for not paying enough attention. I'd love to know what you would have done differently if you'd be the social service worker.

The kid has a problem with the current diet, that is all. Sure, the parents didn't know but it IS kinda their fault he was sent to the hospital. Of course Social Security would be called, you can't just assume everyone is perfect and will immediately change their son's diet, which it sounds like they didn't do right away. Does that mean they're bad parents? No. Just probably should have looked into it a little more. Point is that a kid was sent to the hospital cause of the diet the parents were giving him. =/ I'd consider making sure someone is in charge too. Just in case. Then again, I've heard the horror stories too many times. I mean they probably should have dropped it sooner than they did and not taken them to court so rigorously, but I'd rather they check in on a family than ignore them.

Well the initial call was not but the continuance and elevation of the actions afterwards, as well as the taking away of the legal aid, were out of line.

I don't believe that social services removed the legal aid. Legal services removed it because they didn't think that the parents had a good chance of winning their case. And the reason that social services continued investigating the family and visiting was because the parents refused to even consider that their diet was the cause of their son's problems. If the parents were ignoring doctors telling them that they needed to do something about his diet, why wouldn't social services escalate their actions?

At first it makes sense what the social services were doing. A young child comes into the hospital ill and the primary explanation is malnutrition. That's something you want to get the social services in even if the explanation is incorrect because the social services should remove the child from their care upon receiving correct explanations that did not point to ineffective, dangerous parenting. Imagine the reverse happened: a young boy came into a hospital ill and doctors suspected malnutrition but the social services just asked the parents, "Mr and Mrs So-and-so, are you properly feeding your child because doctors said he's malnourished?", and the parents said "My gosh, we are feeding him properly, we'll try giving him some vitamin pills also", it would cause a shitstorm if the social services went on their merry way trusting the parents just to find out the parents were lying.

In hindsight it's easy to point fingers and shame the social services but they weren't aware of the truth, so what would you want them to do? Put yourselves in their shoes and their actions become appropriate.

The social services hounding the parents I think was also appropriate as well up to a point. When they hear the family has multiple children, it's a reasonable guess that the family may be malnourishing the other children as well. So of course social services get involved. They stay involved when the parents refuse to change the potentially dangerous diet, which is basically waving a flag under the noses of the social services that they're malnourishing their children some more. The home education produces inclusiveness in a family that is so tight and restricting of anyone to gain entry results in more suspicion because in this view, it suggests the family is hiding something.

Once they were told the other children are indeed healthy and the 1 ill child has a unique disease not due to the parents' diet, then if there are no other suspicions, there is no reason to be involved any longer. Of course, they should still question why the family was so refusing to change to please the social services, the previously-mentioned suspicions would still be present.

I can rip you off, and steal all your cash, suckerpunch you in the face, stand back and laugh. Leave you stranded as fast as a heart-attack.
- Danko Jones (I Think Bad Thoughts)

I don't believe it was anyones fault that boy ended up in the hospital. He needed vitamin D, they gave him vitamin D. Was it their fault he stopped absorbing it? No.

I think they need to find out what's truly wrong with him, which is what social services should have done had they really wanted to save that kid (yes, I know that isn't really what they're there for).

"We all have battle scars, Finn. Suck it up and build a brace for yours."

I don't believe it was anyones fault that boy ended up in the hospital. He needed vitamin D, they gave him vitamin D. Was it their fault he stopped absorbing it? No.

I think they need to find out what's truly wrong with him, which is what social services should have done had they really wanted to save that kid (yes, I know that isn't really what they're there for).

Except there's no proof that the boy wasn't absorbing Vitamin D. That is something that the parents thought might have been happening, but the parents aren't doctors. They don't really have the medical knowledge to be diagnosing their child and ignoring what his real doctors have said.